[smokel]

> This is a depressing thought to consider in (linear) middle age, but it is hard to escape the feeling that it is essentially true. Childhood memories have an intensity and a vibrancy that it is difficult for the rest of life to match.

Could anyone who is extremely fortunate and never had to work for money share their experience on this?

I find that the years that I spent on art (playing around, learning new things, not taking other peoples' orders) lasted longer than the ones I spent doing software development for money. Both were fun, but the remaining memories differ by intensity.

I personally don't find the logarithmic experience theory convincing. Why are the first three or so years excluded from this? It seems more likely that new experiences make more impact, or that repeated memories make them more intense. Or dozens of other theories.

[anonzzzies]

My family was not wealthy but I got the luck being born in the EU in a country where edu and Healthcare were basically free and you really cannot end up under a bridge unless extreme mental (and drugs issues that follow that) problems. My parents, even though we did not have much, always taught us to never follow orders unless you think they make sense and follow our own path. I guess that is why I mostly have no difference in vividness; I always did my own thing, that happens to be writing software so I got lucky and got rich by building stuff I thought was nice and needed. I still do that while also doing art (welding sculptures and writing). 2025 was not less vibrant than my childhood. Of course I am the most annoying employee; if you tell me 'have to', I will definitely never ever do it. So I never been an employee; guess that is the luxury you mentioned.

I have no clue how it would have turned out if I would have grown up in a country without a safety net. I hope the same as I never needed that net and will never need it, however I am not so sure; it makes taking risks very easy...

[zozbot234]

Extreme mental and drug issues are always in the picture with those outcomes, though. The real "safety net" when faced with the possibility of real homelessness is to get the hell away from uber-expensive places like SF and move to at least a semi-rural area where getting access to good shelter is going to be orders of magnitude easier. These are not bad places or areas of poverty or marginalization, people have literally been settled there and building functional livelihoods for generations.

[judahmeek]

You say "move", but you must mean "get moved" since homeless people aren't known to have the finances required to travel to another city

[bdangubic]

I was homeless in my 20’s and moving, while of course not as straight-forward as buying a bus/train/… ticket, isn’t that difficult. e.g. many truckers are amazing folk who will help a person in need (as long as you are not an addict etc)

[113]

This doesn't make any kind of sense. There's plenty of homeless people outside of expensive cities.

[marginalia_nu]

Last few years I've been my own boss mostly doing whatever I feel like with several years funds comfortable and no real pressure to do or die. Time hasn't really slowed down. I also took a year completely off work in 2016, that one also passed very quickly.

If anything, having new experiences is what seems to slow down time in my experience. Visiting new locations, doing and learning new things. I suppose more things will be new to the young than the old, so it would make sense as an alternative hypothesis.

I've also had a bad tooth ache since the day before Christmas I haven't been able to get dealt with since all the local dentists are off, and it feels like it's been the longest week in my life. Dunno if I'd recommend it as a way of prolonging the subjective experience of time though.

Another anecdote is that last year I quit coffee cold turkey, and a side effect was that time seemed to slow down significantly. A lot of people seem to be reporting this. Make of it what you want. Quitting coffee also sucks quite a lot, though not as bad as week of severe tooth ache.

[visarga]

In the present moment, time passes slow when something boring or painful happens, and passes fast for exciting or pleasant experiences.

But in hindsight, time passes slow in periods where you had many new experiences and is almost missing in periods of routine.

So an exciting experience might be fast in the moment and slow in hindsight.

[KellyCriterion]

Oh, my dear, thats hell! > I've also had a bad tooth ache since the day before Christmas <

Wasnt there any emergency dentist available? In my location, there are those for these reasons.

[marginalia_nu]

So, short story long: Things weren't that bad before and during Christmas, but started getting bad last Friday. So last Saturday I paid a visit to an emergency dentist, who basically shrugged and said come back on Monday when we have more staff. Sunday sucked I was just in pain all day.

But said and done, I came back on Monday, they looked at it again, said it was probably an old filling that was maybe acting up, basically just drilled a bit and filled it back up again. This made it hurt a bit less for about a day (specially during the procedure, even with them drilling into the tooth, local anaesthetic made this the least discomfort I'd been in for almost a week), but since then it's been aching again. It's not as bad as before, but still barely manageable with OTC painkillers.

So tomorrow I'm hitting them up again, hopefully I'm able to convince them to pull the tooth, since it's way back in the mouth and has been nothing but causing me grief since I got the original filling, food getting stuck and causing inflammation, that sort of stuff. The alternative would probably be a root canal, but since it's in a very inaccessible location, that's a real hassle.

[marginalia_nu]

Update in case someone somehow got hooked learning about my dentistry adventures. Tooth is now removed. That hurt too. But now the lil' fucker is in the medical waste bin.

[kubb]

My best and “longest” memories are from a two year period spent in the university when I had earned some money in internships and could live with few obligations.

That was the happiest I’ve ever been.

Childhood is mostly blocked out (abusive parents, poverty), and adulthood is mostly work.

Maybe we just remember the periods when we’ve been happy. It would make sense evolutionarily.

[RickyLahey]

i basically never had to work (EU privilege + luck of being born the skill of knowing how to sell to people well) and only worked on stuff that i enjoyed and not a lot of hours (and that turned into millions fast) and my 20s/30s flew like months instead of years and didn't have the intensity of my teen years. I think it's because despite technically travelling and living in different countries a lot, going to a new place is not really a new experience after you visit 7 very different ones. The same with women and a lot of other experiences. Having kids was the only think that surprised me. Making money got old fast (i mean trying to get to the "next" level)

[JacWpthrowaway]

Never been rich but .. who's richer, the one who has more stuff / buying power or the one who has less material needs? Anyway, I was always pretty frugal and lucked out on passive income 6 years ago but even before that I never had full time jobs and all my life I basically worked just enough to get by, never cared much about saving.

From my experience childhood felt like grinding my way to max level in an MMO. Had to be done to start playing the game but didn't really care for it. I had more freedom since I was 18 than before so I cherish those memories more.

[bombcar]

The MMO is a really great example because “working life” is often compared to raiding end-game dungeons (or vice versa).

Some really enjoy that, but the journey to max level was always more interesting to me.

There is a way to reroll; at least vicariously.

[carlmr]

>I find that the years that I spent on art (playing around, learning new things, not taking other peoples' orders) lasted longer than the ones I spent doing software development for money.

>I personally don't find the logarithmic experience theory convincing.

I think this tracks though. When you do art or other things you can explore different things. Doing the same thing for 40-60h per week is just not such a varied experience.

[egypturnash]

Art can turn into work too. Spending ~4-5y on a solo graphic novel[1] was mostly about finding that routine of making sure to spend a few hours of every workday working on the comic instead of just faffing about aimlessly.

1: http://egypt.urnash.com/rita/

[Dracophoenix]

What gave you the idea to write a graphic novel in the first place? What's your workflow?

[egypturnash]

I'm an artist and telling a story is a fun way to give structure to the eternal question of "what do I draw next".

Sometimes the art comes first, sometimes the words come first, ultimately they all end up with a rough draft of both in an Adobe Illustrator file that gets refined into a final page, and then I make another file in the same directory, and another, and another, and another, until there's enough to be worth considering printing a book. Sometimes I realize I just have to sit down and figure out what the next hundred pages are gonna be shaped like before I can go back to worrying about what this chapter's gonna be shaped like, or what the current page needs to do. Really it's the same shape as any creative process: make a quick, messy version, ask yourself what's the easiest/most obvious thing to do to make it better, repeat that step until you're satisfied with it and/or the deadline hits.

An important part of the process is also directing interested people to my crowdfunding (https://comradery.co/egypturnash, https://www.patreon.com/egypturnash) so I can afford to keep drawing pages instead of seeking other work. :)

[nchmy]

I, of course, have plenty of vivid memories from childhood. But I've also been fortunate to be able to travel in all senses - quick tourist vacation, a few months backpacking, and multi-year slow travel where I mostly just lived in different places (different nature settings, towns, cities etc).

Tourism is generally forgettable and I don't recommend it to anyone - save the money and do something where you live.

Backpacking feels meaningful in the moment, but is also largely forgettable. I truly have almost no meaningful memories from 2 separate 2 month trips in Europe and southeast Asia.

The slow travel is most recent, was the most "boring" but also, I think, most meaningful as I was explicitly focused on self-reflection and discovery of a more meaningful way to live after many years (or a lifetime, really) of aiming to be a better cog in the machine. I don't have a lot of "memories" - highlights that I reminisce about - from it, but rather various phase shifts/epiphanies in my understanding of myself, life, the world etc...

I now live in relative poverty in a poor country where I have been working for 7+ years to develop a project for the benefit of the multitudes who can't even conceive of being able to do anything that I've just describe. And for whom even childhood is rather joy and wonder-less, because of how hard life is. I'm mostly glued to my computer again, but it's not soul sucking in the way it was in a cubicle with spreadsheets - because the purpose is meaningful.

I do miss the slow travel days - they were absolutely the most enjoyable period of my life. But I've also met people who have done that for decades and they're profoundly sad people - they have no roots or connections anywhere, no meaningful vocation, etc.

A meaningful life is to be actively involved in the sorrows of the world, with joy.

Still, I really ought to get a bit more play and exploration back into my life.

In the past year, I've been coaching teen soccer/football and that has been wonderful. Both to help me fix my desk-broken body, as well as to help them, principally, become better humans. To succeed on the field they need to develop the same characteristics needed to succeed in life - discipline, determination, cooperation, empathy, solidarity, creativity, perspective, vision, patience, and more. The world around them is largely bereft of such things, so it has been challenging.

But they're vastly better at playing now than a year ago, and I've heard they generally behave better at home as well. The difference between this and the article's version of living through your kids is a) they're not my kids and b) I'm focused on helping them become proper adults via play, whereas the article is largely about recreating Neverland where everything is childish. I expect it'll be unlikely that I'll instill much community spirit in them - though, perhaps we'll incorporate some community service into the training at some point. But it all does seem meaningful.

Still, the real focus and crux of my life is the overarching project to help people everywhere become more self-sufficient. Hopefully I'll be finally ready in the next year or so to "go public" with it, and that people will be receptive to using it, collaborating, helping etc...

[srean]

> Backpacking feels meaningful in the moment, but is also largely forgettable.

Was your schedule oversubscribed in these ? I ask because my experience of pleasure travel is very different. More so when there were (i) very little schedule to speak of, other than start and end dates, (ii) had a partner to share the experience of unplanned discovery to share with.

Both, I think, make a significant difference to the experience.

The other biggie are photographs and writing about it.

[nchmy]

> Was your schedule oversubscribed in these ?

I dont have any idea what this means. Could you try again in plain english?

Yes, not having a schedule makes for better travel, as I described in my later multi-year experience. I think most things could probably be made better by having a genuine life partner to share it with. But doing things solo absolutely does not preclude you from meaning. (moreover, I wouldnt describe most romantic relationships as anything resembling a genuine life partner).

Photos and writing are also not inherently meaningful. I did plenty of both and, again, I thought it was all meaningful in the moment, but since realized it was all largely misguided.

If someone were to travel in a genuine manner - where you integrate with local communities, get involved with their traditions, problems etc, then that's an entirely other thing. But just roaming (let alone an itinerary) is largely not actually useful, unless you put it towards something meaningful (eg genuine reflection and improvement, which would largely lead you to realizing that travels themselves are not necessary or even important).

[srean]

I was asking whether your days were (over) packed with scheduled activities. My best ones had very loose to non-existent schedules.

Other than that our experiences are different and that's ok. People are different. It's always a pleasure to meet my past self through those writings (usually emails to friend and family) and photographs I took or were taken by others in the trip.

Agree with you on the part that it is absolutely possible to have a meaningful trip without a life partner.

[nchmy]

i have never traveled with a schedule, even when i was being a "tourist"

also, i probably didnt make this point nearly well enough, but the real point is that travel is completely unnecessary and will absolutely not solve any of your real problems. More likely it will just distract from them, or make them worse. Whatever genuinely beneficial things you and your partner experienced together while travelling could and should be experienced wherever you happen to live.

"travel" is a completely foreign concept to living, that has only become "possible" to most people recently. For millenia, people learned how to live quite well without it.

[srean]

Definitely agree with your point that travel will not solve problems. Wherever you go there you are. However, we disagree in the value of travel.

We are creatures of our surroundings environment and changing the environment definitely helps regulate/alter internal states. Can it be done without the travel, presumably so, but travel makes it easier.

Besides all this stuff about internal state, that's too new agey for my tastes, travels are fantastic for its experiential / dopaminergic value, especially if it's a place that offers beauty.

My brain responds to the sights and sounds in the serenity of mountains in a way that I cannot recreate in constricted crowded settings of clutter. Maybe some people can, I just simply cannot.

Can one live without traveling, of course one can. One can live bed-ridden, paralysed as a born paraplegic. But that was never the question.

[robocat]

> whereas the article is largely about recreating Neverland where everything is childish

That seams like a rather uncharitable take.

To me it came across as being an adult about simple pleasures and joys. Not fantasy.

Perhaps it is because I super admire my friends that enjoy the simple things (one in particular has been rather successful as well). Other friends have big goals - I struggle with them - too often it looks to me they are partaking in a frustrating game of elusive status. Although as a geek, my status games are quite different from theirs, so perhaps it is just that I am misunderstanding them.

> various phase shifts/epiphanies in my understanding of myself, life, the world etc

That's interesting, and I've had that too when my purpose of traveling is to learn about myself (versus traveling just for pure fun).

> traveling

I've done a huge variety of traveling and long term backpacking (the luck of being paid well for a geeky childhood). My opinions about my experiences really don't match what you have written.

[conception]

I always took it sort of that your mind, duplicates memories, and in your adult life almost every day is more or less the same and it just compacts all those memories and time goes quicker because you don’t remember doing the 9 to 5 thing day after day after day, your brain has no reason to remember that, in childhood significantly more items that pop up throughout the year that are extraordinary that your brain remembers. Also brain elasticity etc.

[tristramb]

I recently came to realise that my memories of my experiences of early childhood are probably greatly affected by seeing my younger siblings going through those same experiences a few years later. At age five or six I would see my mother reading to them on the sofa and they would be lying with their heads on her tummy feeling her warmth and listening to her heartbeat and stomach gurgles. Seeing this would remind me of when I used to do that, thus reinforcing those memories and probably somewhat distorting them. One of the distortions is that this memory is set in the house we moved to when I was four, and most of my own relevant experiences would have been set in our previous house. I think the accumulation of memories is a bit like training an LLM on a combination of new data and its own data.